


Ain't Much to Run To

by Deannie



Series: Cowboys and Zombies [10]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (TV)
Genre: 3K Round-up Challenge, Alternate Universe - Zombies, Community: hc_bingo, Gen, Old West Zombie AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-28
Updated: 2016-06-28
Packaged: 2018-07-18 18:00:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7325050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was only visiting my old village for a while when the sickness hit them. Thought we were all cursed until I went back into the white world. I figured it was like smallpox and yellow fever and all the rest of the diseases the white man brought to the Indians—their bodies don’t know it so they can’t fight it. Turned out I was wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ain't Much to Run To

**Author's Note:**

> For the hc_bingo prompt: Apocalypse

My name is Vin Tanner and I ain’t sure what the world is coming to, but I aim to fix what I can.

In the pitch dark of a new moon, I can’t see them coming, but I feel them, like an itch under the skin. They ain’t coming for me, of course. They never do. But there’s a town right near here and they’re shambling toward it.

I follow the pack, then run right past it in the night to get ahead of them. Only thing I can do. Can’t hit what you can’t see, so I’m hoping the town has some street fires going. A lot of them go dark at night now, like they can hide from the monsters. Ain’t seen that trick work yet. Hell, nothing really works except seeing who lives and who dies and who comes back so you can kill them.

Brutal as all hell, but true enough. It’s still like getting sick was before the Hollow Cough, really: some people die quick and some linger. And some, like me, just don’t die at all.

Before the sickness got him and he went cold arms, the village chief, Mammedaty, told me that the powers of the Earth had a purpose for men like me. Sure as hell wasn’t to save the People, or if it was, I failed miserably. Ain’t more than a handful of Kiowa I know who made it through the Hollow Cough and most of them have been hunted down or died later. Ain’t known a one who lived on whole and strong, like me.

I was only visiting my old village for a while when the sickness hit them. Spent a month caring for folks, then two battling it myself. Thought we were all cursed until I left the few who got through it and went back into the white world. I figured it was like smallpox and yellow fever and all the rest of the diseases the white man brought to the Indians—their bodies don’t know it so they can’t fight it. Turned out I was wrong.

Most white men die of it, too, so I guess I should still count myself lucky. Lucky mostly that I was with the People when I got it. Since I left the village, I’ve seen too many people die before they even had a chance, folks that were bit and didn’t even fall sick before they was killed or just shot themselves, figuring there wasn’t much point. Life never was worth much to some and it seems like it’s worth even less these days.

Always has been to me, though, and the _t’o maumau_ I’m tracking aren’t going to get a chance to clean out another town. I'm still well outside this particular town when I get to a place with enough light to see the target. The farmhouse isn’t big, but they got torches going out front, like they’re keeping watch. I hope they are, as I run to the wall of the nearby barn and wait.

The first few _t’o maumau_ go down quick and I hear cries of alarm behind me and running feet. Good. If they’re coming to help, I could use them, and if they’re going the other way, I’d just as soon they were out of this.

Two more rifles join mine to make quick work of the dead ones, and I turn as the last one falls, taking in a man and a woman, older than me but not too old. They’re holding those guns like they ain’t never shot ‘em before, but I think that’s likely more that they ain’t never shot a dead person. Or hell, maybe they’re just surprised to see me.

“Thank you for the help,” I say plainly. I don’t need to be shot myself. It hurts like hell and I don’t got another jacket. 

“More like we should be thanking you,” the man says. He’s got a shock of white-blond hair that glows in the firelight. “I was in the cellar and Eudora here was upstairs. Mightn’t have seen them coming ‘til it was too late.” He switches hands with his rifle and holds his right out in greeting. “Name’s Johan Krist.” He gestures to the woman behind him. She’s lean and tall and looks strong enough to get through anything. “My wife Eudora.”

I shake his hand and nod to them both. “Vin Tanner.”

“We’d be honored if you’d come in and stay the night,” Eudora tells me, shaking my hand as well. Her voice is soft and gentle, at odds with her hard features and jet black hair done up in a bun. “Least we can do. You should know better than to be out in the dark like that. Land sakes! Where’d you come from?”

“Middy Pines,” I tell her truthfully. I let them lead me to the house and don’t bother to say that I ain’t one to have to fear the night. That don’t always end well for me. Instead I pat the satchel strapped to my back. “Running a package to Youngstown.”

“Youngstown!” Eudora says in shock. “Why that’s half a day’s ride from here!”

“Plus a day at least to Middy Pines. Probably two on foot,” Johan puts in as they wave me in their front door. “Wouldn’t it be better to use a horse?”

“Ain’t many of those to be found these days,” I remind them. “Sometimes it’s safer to risk just a man instead of an animal besides.”

“I’d say it’s a good thing you know your way around a rifle, then,” he replies.

The house is real nice. Homey. Looks like it’s just the two of them here. Hard life these days, ranching—even harder than it used to be. “Might say the same about you. Lots of people have gone running to the towns by now or just cleared out altogether.”

Eudora sniffs at that. I like her. She’s got spunk. Reminds me of my ma. “My family has held this land through two wars—even through the Indians!” She looks at me in horror for a second, no doubt taking in my buckskins and Indian fringe. “Not that— I mean—”

“What Eudora is failing to say,” Johan breaks in with an easy smile, “is that we’ve fought worse than mindless corpses to keep this ranch.”

I nod at him, giving Eudora a quick wink to let her know I got no hard feelings. Indians don’t want your land anyway, ma’am, I don’t bother to point out.

“Well, now I can’t imagine you had any real food on the way from Middy Pines,” Eudora says to cover her own embarrassment. “We ate a while ago, but the stove’s warm and there’s still some stew to be had.”

My stomach grumbles and I share in their chuckles. “Be right obliged, ma’am.”

“No, Mr. Tanner,” she says seriously. “ _We_ are.”

 

The food was good, and I’m feeling the ache of the miles I put behind me today as I settle into the seat they got right by the hearth. Living through the Hollow Cough gave me the strength to run for a lot longer than I ever used to, but even I can’t run forever.

“Now please don’t mind me if I’m prying,” Eudora says carefully. Spunky, but she’s got the sound of a gossip to her, too. “But, well, you do look as if you’ve seen the world.”

I grin with her husband, who’s puffing away on a pipe as he sits in one of the table chairs. “Reckon I have, yes, ma’am.” I can’t help but sigh. “Ain’t seen a lot of good lately, that’s for sure.”

“So then, the undead… They really are taking over?” she asks, horrified and fascinated all at once.

“I don’t know as they plan to take over anything, ma’am,” I tell her truthfully. “Pretty sure they’re just like animals now. Not even smart ones, just driven.”

Johan nods like he knows what he’s talking about. “I can’t imagine becoming one of them,” he pronounces. “Why, if I were bitten, I believe I’d do the right thing and simply remove myself straight away.” He looks pointedly at his rifle, and my teeth grind together.

“I hear tell some survive,” I reply. I ain’t offering myself up as an example, though. I’ve had to live through that before—very nearly didn’t. “Reckon maybe it’s like any disease, ain’t it? Some live and some die.”

Eudora’s voice is preachy now. “Well I hear there’s almost no one left in California,” she schools me, though I can’t believe that’s true, full up as that place was when this all started. “Surely if there were survivors, we’d have heard about them. If you’re bitten, you’re dead.”

Or you ain’t.

“I expect I just can’t help but hope, Miss Eudora,” I tell her, giving her a smile I don’t feel. Don’t need to force the yawn that busts out of me, but I ain’t much interested in keeping up this line of talk. “I don’t mean to be rude, but…”

“Oh! By all means,” Johan says, knocking his pipe into the hearth. “What are we thinking, keeping you up this late?” He gestures over by the door. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you more than a patch of floor, but it’s inside. Safe from them for a while.”

I reach over to the pack I was carrying, taking out the thin blanket I carry everywhere. It’s lighter and smaller than a bedroll, and I don’t sleep much when I’m running anyway. “It’s more than I had when I ran into you, Mr. Krist,” I thank him. “I appreciate the food. And the company.”

Eudora nods, smiling charitably at me. “I’ll have a right breakfast for you in the morning, Mr. Tanner,” she tells me, like I’m a schoolboy ain’t been following the rules. “You’ll want to eat up before running all the way to Youngstown.”

“Obliged, ma’am,” I say shortly.

I’m glad when they move off to the loft upstairs and take the lantern with them. The fires out in the yard are still burning, and I reckon they will for a while. They make patterns on the ceiling and I stare up and think.

_Safe from them for a while._

Hell, I’m always safe from them. It’s like I’m one of them. Or like they know biting me ain’t going  to do anything, so they just don’t. No, it’s people like Eudora and Johan I’m trying to keep safe. Though sometimes I don’t know why.

I’m tired of hearing how people who are sick should just jump in a fire and have done. Tired of seeing families turn against their own without even _trying_ to save them. Kill yourself before your loved ones have to do it...

Reckon I’ll move on before that nice big breakfast tomorrow. Get going at first light.

Don’t know what I’m running toward, but it looks like what I’m running _through_ doesn’t change from town to town. Everybody’s ready to die, but nobody’s ready to fight.

Better be ready soon. There ain’t going to be enough of us left by the end if we aren’t.

*****  
the end


End file.
